


One/All/Off

by allofuswithwings



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Melancholy, POV First Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:56:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofuswithwings/pseuds/allofuswithwings
Summary: Dom contemplates the life he lives on the road, and all the small and big things that happen there.
Relationships: Matt Bellamy/Dom Howard
Kudos: 5





	One/All/Off

**Author's Note:**

> Imported from Livejournal/Dreamwidth. Originally published March 2011.

A fan asked me once, what it was like to travel all the time. To live on the road. To never know a fixed point as home. Not for long periods anyway.

I didn’t think much of it then. Didn’t believe I had an unusual life. Not really. A lot of people spend most of their waking hours away from the place they call home. Working, eating, socialising. Just because I didn’t have that permanent building to sleep in at the end of the day, didn’t mean my life was any different.

But later, it occurred to me, it _is_ different. There’s nothing holding me down, keeping me anchored. No house, no mortgage, no rent, no rates, no bills. I owe money for things but they’re paid for quickly, effortlessly, unthinkingly. I have no responsibilities like that.

So I need to find other things to keep me focused. Matt too.

Familiar things, repetitive things, stupid things. Brand names, clothing slogans, coffee chains. That span across cities, countries, continents, cultures. McDonalds, American Express, Western Union, Seven-Eleven, BP, Starbucks.

Matt always hates when I go in there. I know why, but he knows why I do it. I’m not a big coffee drinker.

Like a song that makes the rounds with the band and the crew when we’re on tour. For a good couple of weeks it will crop up here and there. One of us singing it, humming it, scrawling the lyrics somewhere. I told Matt last time, if he as much hummed a bar of _Sex On Fire_ again, I’d throttle him.

Not that I would have. Because deep down I know what it’s for, why we do it.

His new thing is stick figure signs. Each country or city, he’ll keep an eye out for those _Slippery Floor_ or _Mind The Step_ type of signs, and take photos of the good ones. He especially likes the ones where the stick figures appear as though they’re being seriously or humorously injured. I think maybe next time we find a good one, I’ll nick it and give it to him for his birthday.

A fan also told me once we always repeat ourselves. Not from just being asked the same questions in interviews, she didn’t mean. It’s more than that. It’s our turn of phrase, verbal quirks, idiosyncrasies. Repeat the same jokes, witty comments. Even if they’re not that funny, weren’t even funny the first time around.

But they’re familiar. Without them, I’d surely have gone mad by now. Without _him_.

So I know that it was me that started it. Another item of familiarity, something to repeat. Because I was jealous. Thought I was going to lose him. No pissing about this time. Gaia had always been a distraction, but nothing more than that in my eyes. She ended it some time ago, so he started up with Kate. I was irrational, I know that.

On impulse, I kissed him. It wasn’t a snog of course, but he was surprised. We didn’t do lip to lip kisses normally. He laughed, embarrassed, and then brushed it aside.

I did it again the next week, and he wasn’t as confused. It became one of those things, those patterns. When Matt and I were alone for a few moments, I’d kiss him. Plant one on him, just briefly. I don’t know what he thought of it then. Just another repetition, I suppose.

But being the person that I am, it couldn’t stay that way. I couldn’t leave it alone, unexplored. After a couple of months, I wanted more. Suddenly, irrationally, desperately.

Instead of kissing him gently, I put my tongue in his mouth, hands in his hair. I pressed him against the wall, fingers tearing at his buttons, clutching at fabric. Matt didn’t seem surprised. Maybe after everything, I’d become predictable.

He let me half undress him, touch him, shove down my own jeans. I slicked him, fucked him, possessed him. He came in my hand, and I inside him, his groans ringing in my ears. Those sounds were not familiar, not in that way.

But afterwards it was all “no”s and “just this once”, and other things I didn’t want him to repeat. I called him names and shoved him. Told him I didn’t want to see his face again.

He forgave me, of course, after a while.

We still repeat those jokes, those songs, those places. Matt showed me another warning sign he found the other day. It’s a stick man with his arse half-caught in the doors of a train. He giggled hysterically for about ten minutes straight after looking at it again.

It’s from Tokyo, I think.

~  



End file.
